Mark Rees-Thomas

Mark specialises in Employment Law, Investigations, and Change Management. Mark has also worked in organisations in senior management roles, including HR Director of EDS New Zealand in their Senior Executive team. In that role, he was responsible for the HR component of major IT contracts, and conducted the change management activities including the transition of hundreds of staff.

His clients encompass a range of public and private sector organisations.

Employment Law

Mark advises in all areas of employment law, including drafting of contracts and policies, restructuring, and personal grievances. He also has experience in collective bargaining and has led negotiations for approximately 10 collective employment agreements with Massey University, NZ Racing Board and TAB. Mark has also been involved in significant legal projects including the payroll remediation project for a large Government agency arising from the interpretation of the Holidays Act.

Investigations

Mark has conducted over 20 independent employment investigations for public and private sector organisations, covering topics such as fraud, bullying, sexual harassment, serious harm, customer complaints, inappropriate use of computers, discrimination, and breaches of professional codes of conduct.

Change Management

Mark has led major change management projects, including the design of operating models, outsourcing of IT services to private companies and design and implementation of organisational structures. His change management experience includes

Led an 18 month change project for Ministry of Education, redesigning their evidence data and knowledge team and implementing the new structure.

Led the HR stream in outsourcing IT Infrastructure for the New Zealand Racing Board to Spark Digital; and outsourcing IT Infrastructure for Ministry of Justice to Fujitsu. Mark was also one of the evaluators and negotiators on the commercial teams to assess the infrastructure suppliers

Led and implemented Information Technology organisational reviews, including designing new operating models for Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and Kiwibank

Led the Change Management stream for the outsource of Facilities Management across 20 prisons at the Department of Corrections